ADVERTISING PREMIUM SKINCARE PRODUCTS ON AMAZON
Author: Rachel Street, Advertising Director at Luminary Retailers
We’re not in the business of selling protein powder. Nothing against protein powder; we love seeing all brands succeed on Amazon. It’s simply not our expertise, and your brand deserves industry expertise.
Luminary has worked tirelessly to test and scale the customer experience needed specific to the beauty category on Amazon. Combining over two decades of retail experience and six years of working with prestige and masstige skincare beauty brands on Amazon that range from formerly in-spa only to in-store distributions in major retailers like Target, Sephora, and Nordstrom.
WHY OUR BEAUTY EXPERTISE MATTERS
The core of our passion is aligning customers with products based on proven ingredients to help their specific skincare needs. However, when it comes to skincare, the path to purchase is often longer, winding around product research, ingredients, and industry terminology that overwhelms customers when shopping online. This is why so many of us love the attention and insight we can get from our favorite esthetician or even at a local beauty counter.
But that’s not always available. Given 63% of online customers are going to Amazon first, it’s our job to attract customers and provide them with the information needed to keep them in the sales funnel with limited distractions.
KNOWING THE PREMIUM BEAUTY CUSTOMER
With the average product on Amazon in the beauty category being $37 (SemRush, May 2022), we have to carve out a path to purchase through the clutter of the market featuring thousands of brands priced to meet the typical customer at an agreeable price. That path has to clear the noise for the premium shopper who prioritizes ingredients, sourcing, potency, and efficacy over price and is willing to spend 40% to 60% more than the market average.
With demographic, lifestyle, and socio-economic insights limited by Amazon in most consoles, we’re forced to develop a customer profile based on their likely lifestyle choices, shopping habits, and product interests. The insight from this research helps us target qualified audiences and generate viable ad visibility conducive to the long-term ad strategy of acquiring new customers.
INGREDIENT AWARENESS
Skincare is complicated and requires greater specialization and understanding of ingredients and how they work. Unlike categories that are low-risk purchases, like maybe a new snack, or products that serve a single purpose, like noise-canceling headphones, skincare requires the marketer to know how and why an ingredient is used. Hyaluronic acid, for example, can be used for anti-aging, plumping, and hydration retention, giving way to many uses and benefits. Knowing how these benefits play into Amazon discovery and search successfully helps ads get to the right customer faster. This is why it’s critical for your agency partner to have extensive knowledge of product ingredients and uses to attract customers and keep them in the sales funnel. Otherwise, your ads are missing qualified audiences if you’re focusing on only the root term and single use of a product.
Root Term: Vitamin C Serum
Use Cases: Skincare Serum Routines, Pregnancy Safe Skincare, Even Skin Tone, Facial Serums, Brightening Skincare Products, Layering Serums, Collagen Booster, Appearance of Under Eye Circles
PRICE POINT
Another important aspect we frequently have to navigate is advertising products typically priced higher than the average purchase on Amazon, which impacts advertising in many ways, from lower click-through rates to longer conversion windows and higher new customer CPAs. Over the years, we have built out best practices for advertising, knowing what beauty customers are looking for by product type and what it takes for them to consider a product priced 60%+ over the category average.
The numbers don’t fit the typical PPC mold and thresholds standardized across Amazon or what you might experience at an agency managing multiple categories/products. With our collective experience and historical performance data, we’re better able to determine the path to purchase for the skincare shopper and utilize advertising to stay close to the most qualified shopper consistently.
Brands priced in the top percentile on Amazon have to understand that new customers will cost more than brands that hover at or below the market average– up 7x to 10x what it will cost to retain your existing customers, especially with the cost of Amazon CPC’s increasing by 20% on average in 2022. Focusing on developing metrics that show the more significant impact of advertising long-term; on new customers, repeat purchases, new subscribers, and market share.
BUILDING TRUST
Advertising will get customers to your page, but having the right content and incentives will get those customers to convert. Skincare and beauty products require delicate care when it comes to utilizing the right content in the right places. Customers are looking for validation that this product will meet their needs, and we only have so many seconds to align the content to those needs.
We work to insert content into your titles, thumbnails, bullet points, and A+ content that proves to the customer your brand’s product is the perfect fit for them. Specifically for skincare products, we must build efficacy through citable clinical research, consumer studies, accolades and awards, esthetician verifications/recommendations, and substantiated product claims. All of these aspects are incredibly important for demonstrating the potency, concentration, and viability of your products and positioning your brand for high organic and paid conversion rates on Amazon.
LETS CHAT
We’d love to hear from you and align our expertise in advertising beauty and skincare products on Amazon. We specialize in beauty and are obsessed with knowing the evolving beauty consumer and ensuring ads capture the right customers for your brand.